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A Medal For Tom Lannon

from From Boston Harbor by Crosscurrents Music

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about

She has the lines of a traditional Gloucester schooner and the lineage of a Newfoundland fishing family. It was inevitable that I should make a song for the Thomas Lannon. This "chantey ballad" is a true story, with quotes from newspaper clippings of "the bravest rescue man e'er made at sea."

lyrics

Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
Hear the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.

Thomas Lannon came from Newfoundland and he wed a Gloucester lass
He fished the Essex schooners ‘til the day that he did pass.
Just like a dancing cockle shell his dory rode the wave
The day his mates and Thomas snatched the Eric from her grave.

Off Chatham Bar at Highland Light the wind blew sixty knots
When a northeast gale comes on to blow, there is no rougher spot.
Coal-laden and low-squatted, the Eric lost her mast
For the gale had turned out all the stops like a diapason’s blast.

Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
Hear the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.

Captain Giffin brought the Conqueror down and did his level best
He wagged her jumbo, foresail too, ‘til the Eric came abreast.
Then Thomas in his dory with his brave and true men five
Rowed down to windward of the wreck and picked them off alive.

There are no medals made too large, they said in Boston town
When these sturdy sailors, Gloucester boys, put in to Provincetown.
As brave a rescue, it was said, as men e’er made at sea
Worthy to be told by Kipling, yea, or Connolly.

Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
Hear the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.

Well, Thomas kept his medal, and his son handed it down
To a cousin of young Thomas who grew up in Gloucester town.
One summer he went down the Rock with his wife and children too
Where he heard tell of this brave deed by the granddad he never knew.

Young Tom knew Essex schooners, though today there’s only five
And he set his mind to building one to keep the dream alive.
Four hundred years the Burnhams had been building wooden boats
And Harold, he allowed as how he’d like to make her float.

Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
Hear the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.

The museum down to Essex, they knew where to build a ship
And the Greenbelt boys had timber near to hand her planks to rip.
Hog Island gave her white oak and black locust for her frame
Tom made her sticks of Douglas fir, and gave her his granddad’s name.

They laid her whiskey plank in April, launched her that same June
She ran out on the evening tide under a midnight moon.
And now on summer evenings, the good folk of Cape Ann
Make music on the Lannon when the sunset’s near to hand.

Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
Hear the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.

So here’s a health to Thomas, Gloucester boy from Newfoundland
And here’s one to young Tom for building of this schooner grand.
There are no medals made too large for helping men and boats survive
So we’ll sing this as Tom’s medal, and help keep his dream alive.

Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
Hear the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.
Frame up! Heave up! Haul ‘em up for sail
And help the Thomas Lannon tell her Gloucester schooner tale.

credits

from From Boston Harbor, released June 9, 2022
© Lynn Noel

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Crosscurrents Music Boston, Massachusetts

Lynn Noel brings traditional song and heritage arts online to create community. Lynn has a voice of striking clarity and power, equally at home in rhythmic chanteys and flowing ballads.

Lynn is a respected song session leader on both sides of the Atlantic and the producer and host of the Mermaid's Tavern online folk club. She is currently Program Chair of the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA). ... more

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